Increase Agility Blog

I recently had a thought that I'd like to share with others regarding agile thinking.

I believe that agile maturity can be thought of in three levels:

1) Level 1 is where agile is thought of as a way to allow change through adaption and inspection.

2) Level 2 sees agile as proactive in it's ability to change: it not only allows change, but proactively positions the organization to expect and anticipate changes, in part by actively deferring constraining commitments.

3) The most mature agile organizations must seek out change, not just passively await it. The example is organizations that foster change through techniques such as hack-a-thons or innovation days.

I've come to see these levels by watching multiple companies introduce Scrum and the supporting agile mindset without seeing product innovation. They simply wander to the same general destination as they always have, minimizing risk and reducing waste, the only innovation being in the minor details. That’s a pity, but often the best you can hope for until the organization matures.

These levels are not meant to relate to Shu-Ha-Ri nor the Dreyfus model of skill acquisition. It’s just way of progressing a company to higher levels of empirical processes based on their attitudes of change. It works for me.